Season 16

1994-07-14

"Killer bug ate my face!" "Dither and you die!" screamed the tabloid headlines in May this year. For one week the nation was terrorised by an outbreak of flesh-eating bacteria stories. The "epidemic" of streptococcal infections started in Gloucestershire, but within days claimed victims across the country. Then suddenly there were no more reported cases and the panic was over. Curse of the Killer Bug goes behind the headlines to examine how the superbug scare happened. Staff at Stroud and Gloucester hospitals assess the way they handled the scare, journalists describe how the story broke and the people of Stroud talk about being the focus of a world news story. But this first programme in a new series of QED also reveals that while the headlines concentrated on these lurid cases, another deadly strain of bacteria has killed 60 people in the Midlands alone this year.

1994-07-21

Three years ago, Annie Reid was told she had cancer. She decided to fight the disease as long as possible and leave her young family a legacy including poems, songs, and a book for the children. In this moving film portrait, Annie faces her greatest challenge so far - a huge operation which could save her life. QED cameras follow her as she waits to hear the results of vital tests and prepares for what may lie ahead.

1994-07-28

"We've come a long way from Barbara Woodhouse ; nowadays it's the owners who get told to sit," says Michael Houldey , producer of this insight into a new British breed - the dog psychologist. Once thought of as a faddy indulgence on the part of Americans with more money than sense, the canine counselling business is booming and vets and owners are taking it seriously. For the Robotham's, man's best friend has become their worst nightmare - Blue the alsatian can only be walked at night. Oscartheterrier'sfamily are virtual prisoners in their own home. And Stanley, a doberman, has been ordered by a court to be destroyed. Will eminent dog psychologist Roger Mugford 's "character testimony" save him?

1994-08-04

It's a normal day at the green customs channel at Heathrow airport. A random check on a jumpy passenger carrying a camcorder case reveals a deadly cargo.... six live rattlesnakes. Producer Will Aslett , who made this film about the animal quarantine stations near Heathrow's Terminal 4, witnessed the incident - and several more like it. Finches from Senegal, stuffed 150 to a cage the size of a briefcase, and a suspiciously cold bag packed with the thawing carcasses of a hunter's booty, from armadillos to silver foxes, bound for an Italian taxidermist. Last year alone, 12,853 animals, mostly endangered species, were seized. All the animals that arrive at Heathrow, whether smuggled or legally imported, have to go through the quarantine station, Europe's first line of defence against disease. But it's an uphill struggle: five new diseases have entered the UK in the past 18 months and the relaxing of European laws on quarantine is makingtheir work even harder.

1994-08-11

"If you eat your dinner, you can have pudding." How many people remember that bribe as a child? And how many repeat it to their own offspring? Yet an apparently innocent remark like that can be the start of a vicious circle of feeding difficulties in children. Food Fights looks at parents' attitude towards children's eating habits by focusing on one family, the Marklews. Their 3-year-old son [text removed] has eaten very little for the last year and his parents are particularly anxious because he has had a heart operation. This documentary picks up the Marklews' story with their first visit to psychologist Gill Harris, whose advice seems to contradict fundamental beliefs.

1994-08-18

Bruce Silcock 's neighbours are less than excited about his plans to become a millionaire. Bad enough, they think, to live near his small fishing bait farm in Essex, with its pits of maggots and stench of rotting meat, but now Bruce wants to start maggot production on an industrial scale. The Maggot Mogul follows Bruce as he seeks planning permission to build the biggest maggot farm in the world. He explains that the maggot is an environmentally useful creature - not only does it neatly dispose of the huge amounts of dead and diseased meat generated by factory farming, but Bruce has now discovered that the waste it produces makes an excellent organic fertiliser. This is a timely discovery considering that this country is facing an environmental crisis over what we should do with the animal carcases left over from the factory farm industry.